Hello folks..I'm new here but have been reading the posts for about a week now and decided to post a thread

In January I retired after 20 yrs in the military and decided to move back home to SW LA. , be more self sufficient,raise some animals,reduce stress, enjoy life and to be ready for future crisis's if at all possible...with the way the world is now I really believe most of us will see a major life changing national crisis in our lifetimes...hopefully I am wrong! All my life I have followed my gut instincts and most of the time they have not been wrong...this time my gut tells me to prepare for the worst, to be ready for anything, to get back to the basics as much as I can....to me its a win-win situation...if nothing happens I will have got back to my roots and the Cajun way of life..

In October I bought 5 acres of old rice/crawfish farm land and currently trying to get the dirt work done on it so i can plant some grass and let the ground settle for awhile...I found a guy that would build me a pond,housepad,driveway and laser level the land for $3k...well it didn't quite come out as I expected and have a few problems to fix......what I ended up with is a .5 acre pond that is 3-8ft, a clay housepad that is .8 acres x 1ft high...and a driveway that is 400ft long x20ft wide x 1ft high...the problems are..I want the pond deeper...and the guy used topsoil to build my driveway instead of clay ..I'm trying to get him back out here to fix it...move all topsoil and put clay down....he is using a 21 yard scraper to do all of this....when he is done I'll call in a local dirt contractor to dress everything up with a dozer and dig my pond alil deeper with a excavator..which of course is more $$$ that i don't really have lol

from that point..I'll move my older/paid for mobile home on the pad and then hopefully within a year start building my dream hobby house.....a 40x60 or 50x70 metal "barndominium"! which of course would be half house and half workshop....i only need about 1200sq ft to live in...the rest would be devoted to my hobby of restoring antique boats and motors.

my brother lives with me and he owns a horse that is kept at my other brothers house....so the front 2 acres will be pasture for horses and boer goats......the back area will be catfish pond and poultry(chickens,turkey,guineas) then an area for a small garden and fruit trees..

well thats the plan/dream and hopefully I can make it come true...I am running low on cash..i have enough to install septic system and finish dirt work and put gravel down....after that I will need to go back to work, i've taken almost a year off since I retired its time to try to make some $ again..

here are some pics for your viewing pleasure...I will be updating and posting pics on this thread as things happen...i've really enjoyed reading rocketman's and Dave's and others homesteading threads...and they have been an inspiration and motivation to "get'er done"

Welcome and thank you for the service to the country, as I am the proud father of a Sailor, and the son of a Sailor....I am grateful. You have a fine looking parcel there and I hope you have a dream of your homestead come true...........

__________________accusare nemo se debet nisi coram Deo ....(no one ought to accuse himself except in the Presence of God)

Thanks Aamylf....i'm about 20-30 from the gulf of mexico...wikipedia says my towns elevation is 26ft..kinda hard to believe though lol but I do know i'm not in a flood zone .....we get hurricane damage here though, mainly wind damage but no flooding...

racerrick...i'm in southwest La..about 75 miles from texas right off I-10....we have bayou's but its mostly farm/prairie land around here...about 15 miles south of us its all marsh land....all the big swamps are in the mid-south area of La.

well for alil update on the dirtwork....for the last week its been dry here and the ground finally dried up enough for the guy to come back and swap out the topsoil for clay on the driveway......he got about an hour of work into it yesterday and shut it down cuz it got dark....was coming back today to finish it up...well overnight it rained pretty hard and now its a big mud hole again so no dirtwork till it drys! I'm trying to get all my dirtwork done so i can get my gravel down and plant some winter rye grass...sometimes i just cant win..

Kajungoosehunter is a friend of mine...he's the one in the pic checking the pond width and has been helping me bushhog and plan stuff out...

Thanks jdphish. We do get snowgeese down here...by the millions later on in the season. Seems like we have no geese at all, then in one week, they are everywhere. I went to our farm today and had some specklebelly geese there finally. I haven't seen the snows yet, but they will be there soon. I'll post some pictures.

Here's a lil update on the homestead..finally got my dirt work finished, after the scraper was done I brought in a dozer to dress everything up, then ran a homemade vibroshank around it to smooth it out, then planted alil winter rye grass on all the drainage areas and slopes to try to prevent erosion...its been raining alot down here so just basically been watching the grass grow...

my next step when it drys up is to put down gravel/rock on the road, which is gonna cost an arm and leg ...i need 450ft x10ft x4inch thick for the road..ouch!! after that gonna drop the septic system, then electric and water and then pull my trailer on it...hoping to be living on it by end of march.

I bought a old Ford 8n tractor the other day for $450 so I've been working on getting it running so i can do some box blading, I love these old tractors! can't wait to restore it to show room condition.

First of all, thank you for your service son. Thanks for sharing the photo's. Looks good. That Ford-8N tractor will take good care of you as long as you take good care of it. Good luck and keep us updated.

__________________
There never is a convenient place to fight a war when the other man starts it. - Admiral Arleigh Burke